From Light to Dark and Back Again
by galapagos
Summary: The Sorceress had one last spell up her sleeve, and DG is the victim. Will Cain and the others be able to save her in time?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: None of it is mine - it all belongs to L. Frank Baum and the SciFi Network

She looked out over the OZ with a smile on her face, then turned to see the sun lighting up the faces of her newfound family, of the friends that had become closer to her than any she'd ever known. Such a feeling of happiness overwhelmed her, threatening to knock her off her feet with the power of it, that she reached out an arm to steady herself.

In the midst of their smiling faces, she saw Cain frown and move toward her, his typical stoic expression marred with worry. Before she could grin and breezily tell him she didn't require looking after anymore, all the faces around her swam together, until darkness replaced the light.

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"DG? Sweetheart?"

DG opened eyes that she didn't remember closing, and found her parents looking down at her with concern. Her head was pounding, and it took a few moments for her to piece together that it was her robo-parents standing over her.

"Mom? Popsicle?" Her voice was strained and scratchy, her throat suddenly dry. Mom was by her side in a flash with a cool glass of ginger ale, pressing a bendy straw to her lips. Pop moved closer to the side of the bed, smoothing strands of wet black hair away from her face.

"You gave us quite a scare, sweetheart. Some kind of bug hit you just when the storm came. Phone lines down, trees all over the place. We couldn't even call Doc Brown, much less get you to the hospital." Pop's eyes were filled with worry, the lines on his face standing out in stark relief.

"Well, she's come out of it now, dear," Mom said briskly, her hands tugging the coverlet tighter over DG's chest, failing to hide her own emotion as tears filled her eyes. "Poor thing, it looked like you were having the most awful dreams."

"Dreams?" asked DG, as she turned her head with some effort, only to find the drawings on her bedroom wall in Kansas looking back at her. "You mean, I've been here the whole time?" Her own eyes started to fill with tears. Everything she'd been through, all the people she'd met, all the good she'd thought she'd accomplished. Her parents exchanged bewildered glances.

"Of course you've been here the whole time, DG," her dad replied. "Where else would you have gone?"

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She'd woken up at home a month ago, returned to work at the diner two weeks later. She went through the motions, but just didn't quite feel like herself. Her parents asked her not to ride her motorcycle to work, and she acquiesced without a fight. Pop drove her to the diner each day, she worked her shift without complaint, and returned home to sit in her bedroom and stare at the pictures she'd drawn until she fell asleep. At first, she hoped that by looking over her sketches until her eyelids drifted closed, she might at least dream of the OZ. She'd never really gotten to know her real parents. To see Az as the young woman she would have become once out from under the witch's spell. She missed Glitch's misfires, Raw's sweet compassion. She missed campfires on the road, falling asleep against gnarled trees, and waking up to find a leather duster draped across her like a blanket, protecting her from the cold.

But each night she slept a dreamless sleep, awakening each morning feeling farther away from the OZ than she had the day before. She tried sketching her friends, but like the remnants of any dream, their faces slipped away from her, until one day she stuffed her sketchbook into the bottom of the chest at the foot of her bed and decided to stop trying. Like Mom and Popsicle said, you can't hold onto dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

Cain watched DG from under the brim of his hat as she turned to beam at her family and friends. When she faced him, it crossed his mind to wonder whether that smile was brighter than the newly shining suns and the gleaming emerald combined. When she swayed suddenly on her feet, he was halfway across the room before he'd even made up his mind to move.

The others looked at him, perplexed, until DG crumpled, Cain's embrace the only thing stopping her from slamming to the marble floor. He could hear the Queen's authoritative voice demanding help above the general shouts and screams of the others. He dropped to his knees, cradling DG in his arms, while Princess Azkadelia drew to his side, her fingers fluttering around her sister's face, murmuring, "No, Deej, come back, Deej, please, please, please..."

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Hours later, Cain stood outside the makeshift infirmary in Azkadelia's tower. He hadn't seen DG since he'd placed her on the bed and taken a step back while the Queen and Azkadelia pulled off her shoes and drew cool white linens up over her pale form. They began talking in fierce whispers, tears streaming down the elder princess's face, while Ahamo came to stand by his wife's side, rubbing slow circles on her back and biting the inside of his cheek each time he looked down at his youngest child. Cain had ducked out of the room, not wanting to leave, but knowing his place.

The hallway was filled with the bustle of Jeb's men roving from checkpoint to checkpoint, the only ones who could be trusted for security at this point in time. Glitch and Raw stood by Cain's side.

The Queen's former advisor would occasionally try to make them feel better by describing an obscure illness that might fit the Princess's symptoms, only to remember at the end of his account that the disease was almost certainly fatal.

Raw's face was contorted as if in pain, and Cain waited as long as he could before asking, "Is she hurting?" The Viewer turned to him, his eyes filled with tears, and said, "DG feel nothing." Cain felt the color drain from his face, and he pressed his lips into a tight line. He didn't speak again until the royal family exited the infirmary.

The Queen looked surprised to see the trio standing in the hallway before her, but her sense of propriety quickly returned, and she nodded her head slightly. Glitch stood up straight under her scrutiny, while Cain removed his hat and studied his shoes. To his surprise, Raw stepped forward.

"We help DG," he said quietly, but firmly. The ghost of a smile flickered across Ahamo's face, Azkadelia raised her eyebrows in surprise, and the Queen looked at each of them appraisingly.

"We are very grateful," she said, holding her husband's hand tightly in her own, "for everything you have done for our daughter. I am certain that she would not have succeeded in her journey without the help of friends such as yourselves. But your talents, even your healing powers ... The magic which has overtaken her now ..."

"Nothing is impossible," inserted Glitch in a quite authoritative tone that Cain guessed came more from Ambrose than his zipper-headed friend.

"We help DG," repeated Raw.

Cain turned his hat over in his hands before raising his eyes to the Queen's. "If there's anything that can be done, your Majesty. Even the smallest chance. She would do the same for us. Hell, she has done the same for us, for all of us, for the OZ." He felt the weight of the Queen's stare upon him, but refused to remove his gaze from hers, not wanting to think of what would happen to DG if her mother took his measure and found him wanting.

"There may be a small chance," interjected a quiet voice.

"Az!" said the Queen, as she turned from Cain to take her daughter's hands into her own. "You don't even know ..."

"I'm sure of it, Mother," the younger woman responded. She turned to face her sister's friends, unsure of whether they would even trust her next words.

"The Wicked Witch of the West imprisoned me in my own body. She was hell-bent on the destruction of the OZ, turning light into dark. Only DG -"

"Only the two of you. Together," countered Glitch, still channeling Ambrose.

Azkadelia blushed in a charming manner that reminded Cain quite a bit of her sister, which prompted him to interrupt gruffly, "Ding dong, the witch is dead. We've got that part. What now?"

The princess grew somber again as she continued, "She has a contingency plan. Had, I mean. The witch." She took a deep breath, realizing she was stumbling over her words. "In case she wasn't able to stop us, she wanted one last taste of revenge. A chance to ... ruin our happiness, take away our light." Azkadelia looked over her shoulder to the infirmary door. "She used her magic for one last spell that would only go into effect upon her death, a spell that can ... infect minds, even ... destroy a person, from the inside out."

"What can we do?" asked Cain, before he let himself think too long about what exactly this spell meant for DG.

"There is a token," Azkadelia explained, "in the dark castle to the north. It can have the effect of undoing certain spells. The Sorceress kept it safe, in case an opponent was ever able to use her powers against her. I believe that with my magic and DG's, through this token we can bring her back."

Cain placed his hat back on his head. "When do we leave?"


	3. Chapter 3

Cain found traveling with the elder princess a bit different than with the younger. Azkadelia, or Az, as she had shyly asked them to call her, was certainly not as talkative as her sister. Cain told himself that he should find that a blessing, but couldn't quite bring himself to believe it. DG had helped gather firewood, chattered incessantly, favored them all with her bright smiles and occasional touches. To come out of that tin suit, to go from years of solitude into close quarters with a young woman who wasn't afraid to elbow his side or squeeze his hand in companionship ... it had almost been too much. He was sure that there were times when he had snapped at her too harshly, or snatched his hand away from hers, but she always looked back at him knowingly, a smile on her lips and in her eyes, and pretended nothing happened. Pretended that he was normal, or at least that he would be, could be so again.

Heaving a sigh, he turned his attention from the tin cup containing his rations for the night and looked across the campfire at his three companions. Glitch was trying his damnedest to draw the princess out of her shell, spinning wild stories with the most exaggerated hand gestures Cain had ever seen. Her quiet giggles indicated that his ploy was working, but the warm look in her eyes edged with a bit of guilt made Cain wonder how well Azka - Az - had known Ambrose before the Sorceress had removed half his brain. Raw sat at the princess's other side, placing a soothing hand against her back whenever she was spooked by a sound in the wilderness, or overcome by a sudden memory. His presence, combined with Glitch's foolery, had calmed Az considerably from her jitters earlier in the journey.

Cain was glad for the chance to sit around the fire, allowing his team to get used to each other. They would need to trust Az, and she, them, for this scheme to work. And it had to work.

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DG started, as if a noise had jolted her into wakefulness. However, the only sounds in the Kansas farmhouse were the familiar creaks in the prairie winds, and the gentle snoring of Popsicle drifting up the stairs. She felt odd, edgy, like she hadn't felt in weeks. Not since before her sickness, when she had been dying to get out of this town, to hop a train or a bus or a plane, all the way to Australia if she had to.

She pushed down the covers, relishing the feel of the cool air against the perspiration on her skin, and tried to pinpoint just exactly what had woken her in the night.

She couldn't quite put her finger on it, and ended up staring out her little window at the full moon while she waited to fall back to sleep. As her eyelids grew heavier, she thought about life here at home, about what the future held. Just as she drifted off to sleep, the image of a man on a horse flashed before her, his hat low over his eyes, his jaw set. Her last thought before she entered another dreamless slumber, to be forgotten immediately upon waking, was: Is he coming for me?

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Cain woke with a start to find that sunlight was just beginning to touch the sky above them. The remnants of their fire of the night before lay smoking on the ground in front of him, his fellow travelers still asleep in their makeshift beds in the back of the van Jeb's resistance fighters had donated to their cause. He made his way around the camp, packing up their belongings quietly, wanting to give the others one last chance to rest before they finished their journey.

Truth be told, he wanted a few quiet moments to himself to think on his dreams from the night before. It wasn't the first night he'd dreamt of DG, and it wasn't the most ... well, scandalous wasn't quite the word he wanted, but he imagined that might be how the Queen and her consort would see some of his midnight reckonings. But this dream was different somehow - it was almost like it wasn't really about his DG. He shook his head forcefully, chastised at his own thoughts. Not his DG, but the girl he knew. The DG in his dream was quiet, with none of that spirit burning behind those bright blue eyes. He'd seen her lying on a bed in a small room with wooden walls, staring listlessly out the window at the moon. He'd tried to call out to her, to touch her, but it became clear that he wasn't really in the room with her, not in any physical sense. Unable to reach out to her, he'd watched her until those wide eyes had fallen closed. Just before her breathing evened out into sleep, he thought he heard her murmur, "Is he coming for me?" He had woken with the sound of his own voice ringing in his ears, "I'm coming, kid."


	4. Chapter 4

The band of four wound their way from Central City to lands far north, staying away from the most well-traveled roads and roving gangs of disenfranchised Longcoats. Every now and again they encountered groups of Resistance fighters, some of whom had heard the news of the Princess of Light and the defeat of the Sorceress. Others were disbelieving, and Cain had found himself cocking his gun in the face of a few too many young men who still saw a threat in Azkadelia. Their war-hardened visages reminded him too strongly of his own boy, and he often had to work harder than he would have liked to keep his anger at them - at himself - in check.

Still, a fortnight's journey later, and the Tin Man, the Viewer, the Princess and the Genius-Jester stood at the base of the northern tower, a spike of dark stone rising out of the bleak and wintry wasteland, its peak lost among swirling clouds of snow.

"No Longcoats?" questioned Raw as he looked up at the gloomy edifice before them. Cain nodded in agreement as his eyes scanned the terrain. He had expected enemies as well, covering the ground like so many insects swarming back to their Queen's remaining stronghold. But the land was bare, the tower seemingly empty.

"She didn't need them," said Az quietly. She had turned away from the tower, as if afraid to face it. "This wasn't a place for men; it was a place for magic."

"She guarded it with spells?" asked Glitch thoughtfully. "Maybe she borrowed some of your smarts as well as your ..." Cain grimaced as Glitch made a gesture toward his chest with both hands that brought the mobats - and the Princess's former outfits - forcefully to mind. Thank the gods Az was looking the other way. He smacked Glitch on the back of the head and turned to Az.

"So what do we need to know before we head inside?"

Az looked at him, her eyes full of worry. "I don't know how to prepare you. The spells are designed to be different for every person, attacking their specific fears, creating illusions that they might not break free of." Cain nodded. He had known that it wouldn't be easy.

"We need you, Princess, to find the token. You're the only one who will be able to sense its magic."

Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. "But I'm afraid ... I ... I don't know if -"

"Princess Azkadelia!" Glitch interjected forcefully. Her breath hitched as she looked at him in surprise. "Are you a princess or are you a wood-mite? Wait, that's not what I - what was I ..." Glitch snapped his fingers several times as if trying to recapture the thought before looking back at Az with a sunny smile. "Did you say something, Princess?"

She looked back at him seriously, as the cold northern air dried her tears into faint tracks on her cheeks. After a moment, she straightened her spine and threw her shoulders back. "No, Ambrose, I did not. Gentlemen?" And with that, she faced the tower head on, and began a regal march toward its iron door. Raw and Cain exchanged confused, if impressed, glances, and followed behind, dragging Glitch along with them.

Az raised a hand and the iron door flew back on its hinges. The interior of the tower was pitch black, and she seemed to lose some of her nerve as she stood at the entrance. She turned as the three men came up behind her, Raw frowning, Cain squaring his jaw, Glitch alternatively peeking out from behind each of the other men's shoulders. Az smiled at her sister's friends and their determination even in the face of darkness and the unknown. She held out a hand to them. "For DG," she said.

"For DG," replied Glitch, his hand on hers in an instant.

"For DG, said Raw, smiling slightly as he placed his own furry hand atop the other two.

Cain felt something move deep within his chest, a sort of tingling pain that he associated with the knot quickly forming in his throat. "For DG," he said quickly, before the words got choked on an emotion that he wasn't ready to admit to. It was when he noticed Az looking at him oddly, her head tilted to one side, that he found his voice again.

"Any way you can cast some light in there, Princess?"

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In a flash, Az had ignited the gas lamps lining the twirling staircase up to the top of the tower. Occasional rooms opened off the stairs, but Az had shaken her head as they passed each one, and after the third or fourth time Glitch had stopped trying to open the doors anyway, only to have Cain grab him by the back of the collar and push him back on course.

Whimpers from Raw grew louder the higher they climbed. "Bad things, very bad things," he whispered over and over again. Each step seemed to drain his energy until the Viewer could barely crawl from stair to stair. Cain knelt beside him, but Raw's eyes were glassy, fixed in the middle distance. His hands rose up as if to protect his face from dangers unseen by the others.

Az reached out a hand to smooth the soft fur against his head, but he recoiled from the contact, still covering his face, whispering, "No! No! Why?"

"We must leave him," Az said. "If we get past the other spells, when we reach the token, the traps here will be broken and he will be free."

Cain nodded. They didn't have time to consider the alternative.

They reached the top of the staircase when Glitch said, "Yes, Your Highness?"

"I didn't say anything -" Az cut off when she saw that Glitch was not staring at her, but looking off into the center of the dimly lit tower room they had reached. His posture had changed, and he walked with the bearing of royalty into the shadows ahead of them.

"No, no, Your Highness is too kind ... well, some of my ideas may have been rather useful, but I hardly think ..."

Cain watched as the princess's face fell. She whispered to herself, barely loud enough for him to hear, "I didn't think he remembered," before biting her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, her eyes locked on the former advisor as if nothing could pull them away.

"Your Highness, I hardly think it appropriate ... Oh, you do?" Glitch sounded flustered, but pleased in a blustery aristocratic tone that Cain was unfamiliar with. "Well, I confess that I have harbored some feelings of my own, and if you do not object ..." True happiness unlike his usual mania filled Glitch's voice. "I would follow you anywhere, Your Highness, my darling, anywhere ... anywhere ..."

Silent tears fell down Az's face, and the look of pure despair in her eyes was one that Cain had only seen once before, in the Central City tower, when he had held her sister's limp body in his arms. Glitch's musings seemed to have paused for a moment, and Cain was torn between reaching out a comforting hand to the princess and trying to drag his friend back into the fold, when the quiet of the tower was broken by a scream that tore through the dark and shook Cain to his very core.

The painful cry had come from Glitch, and now the man lay on the floor of the tower room, his hands on his head as if trying to hold it together, the only sounds in the room his mournful sobs.

Az had dropped to her knees, and Cain put his hands on her shaking shoulders as her quiet sobs threatened to overtake her.

"It wasn't you, Princess," he said softly. "Show him who you are today."

She looked up at the Tin Man, her eyes red and wet, and saw an understanding and a gentleness there that she had not expected. She accepted his hand as he pulled her to her feet, then closed her eyes and held out her hands, palms upward. He watched as she harnessed her magic and pulled herself back together, grateful that all the sisters of the House of Gale seemed capable of such strength.

The next moment, her eyes flew open and she pointed at a blank wall of the room. "There."

He cocked an eyebrow, unsure, but remembered DG's own expedition to the north, and the castle buried under the ice. He put a hand on his gun, even as he wondered what the hell good it would do him, and made his way across the floor warily, the princess only a step behind. He heard whispers just out of his range of hearing, and judging by the frightened expression on Az's face, he wasn't the only one. He pushed through, ignoring them, until they had reached the stone wall, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, green mold lining the places where mortar should be.

"It's here," Az breathed beside him, and he turned wearily in her direction.

"I'm gonna need a little more than that, Princess," he replied.

She reached out a hand, much as he'd seen DG do throughout their journey together, and a sparkling glow lit up her fingers. Light seemed to fire out from the cracks between the stones, and suddenly the wall shimmered, as if it wasn't really there. "That's more like it," Cain grinned, as he saw the small pedestal in the center of the secret room they had just uncovered. Seemingly lit by a violet light from above, it held what looked to be a small silver coin. Az looked at him with a smile on her face and made to go through the shimmering wall ahead of him.

A loud crack shattered through the air around him, some unearthly wind blowing in his face, and Cain instinctively dropped to a crouch and brought up his hands to protect his face. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Az had been blown back several feet, and now lay crumpled on the floor, bruises already appearing on her face and forearms.

"You go, Mr. Cain," she said breathlessly, holding a hand to her side that immediately made him think of her ribs. "Get the token, before another spell hits."

He nodded, moved to his feet and edged closer to the shimmering wall. He reached out a hand in front of him, but instead of the shattering noise of a moment before, his hand flowed easily through the mirage. He looked back to Az, and she nodded her encouragement. "For DG," she said.

He turned, and made his way through the wall, the token so nearly in his grasp.


	5. Chapter 5

Cain stood but a few feet from the pedestal holding the small coin that had brought he and his friends here. Blood pumped faster and faster through his veins as images raced through his head: grabbing the token, saving his friends, returning to Central City, waking DG ...

Suddenly, it seemed as though the pedestal was not as near as he'd thought it was, and shrouded in some sort of mist he'd not noticed before. He took a step toward the coin, but it seemed to move yet a further step away. His goal was becoming lost in the mist he'd fail to take into account. He waved an arm somewhat frantically in front of his face, trying to clear the air, when he heard a voice calling to him.

"Wyatt ..." The voice was low, feminine, laughing. "Come to me, Wyatt." He wanted to stop what he was doing, to follow the seductive sound of that voice. But DG ... He pushed back against the desire coiling inside him and tried to focus on the pedestal through the ever-thicker fog.

"Wyatt, don't you want me?" the voice asked, close enough behind his ear to feel the warmth of her breath against his skin. He jerked his shoulder and tried to move forward, but he felt a small hand on his sleeve, so warm it seemed to burn through the fabric. He turned, and there she was.

DG, clad in a white dress so filmy it seemed like she was wearing the mist itself. Her blue eyes huge, her pupils wide, looking up at him with an expression that he only remembered seeing on her face in some of his more ... scandalous ... dreams. Her hand was rubbing slow circles on his forearm, inching its way up to his bicep, where she dug her fingers in and squeezed. The jolt of pain was accompanied by the sound of her laughter, soft and low. The incongruity fogged his brain for a moment and the next thing he knew her other hand was moving up his chest, fingers tip-toeing over the buttons on his shirt, until her arms linked together around his neck.

"Stay with me, Wyatt," she cooed, leaning her body into his, her hands on the back of his neck tilting his head down to look at her. He could see the creamy expanse of flesh bared at the neckline of her gown, and he swallowed hard. She laughed again, that low, seductive, polished sound escaping from full lips that were almost too red. "You won't leave me, Wyatt," she commanded, her voice a steely tone that he didn't recognize. Her hands pushed his head lower, even as she drew herself up to meet him, her eyelids fluttering shut, her lips parting ... and Cain was suddenly so close to everything he hadn't known he wanted.

He leaned down closer to her, his arms coming from his sides to wrap around her slim body, pulling her tighter to him. He bent his head lower, his lips just a touch away from hers, her breath hot against his face. Just as he was about to bridge the distance and press his lips against hers, an image flashed across his mind.

DG, studying his face across the campfire not long after they'd found Adora's grave. He'd seen her staring and raised an eyebrow, but she'd just smiled slightly, the grin slipping quickly from her face as she continued to look at him, her expression serious. He'd wondered if she felt sorry for him, for an old man locked up too long who'd just found out his wife was dead. He'd looked away quickly, not wanting to face her scrutiny, and found an excuse to wander away from the fire soon after. But now, as he looked upon her firelit image in his mind's eye, he saw something he hadn't expected. She knew him. She looked right into him and she knew him - she saw his pain, his grief, his desire for revenge. She took it all in with those wide blue eyes, and still, she wanted to keep looking. To see right through him, to accept it all, and to find out more.

He pulled back from the vision in his arms. She opened her eyes, a not-displeasing pout on her lips. "Wyatt ..." she taunted, running her tongue over those full lips. She tried to pull him down to her again, her arms stronger than he would have imagined, but he took a step back.

This wasn't DG. A fantasy, maybe even a fantasy of his, but not DG. Not the girl who could see right through him without even trying. Not the girl lying so still in another tower far to the south.

In that moment when he thought of DG, pale and motionless, her life in his hands, the vision broke apart. The mist cleared, the girl who was not DG howled and disappeared, and the pedestal was right where it had been all along. Cursing himself for wasting precious time, he strode to the coin and reached his hand over the pedestal without a second thought as to what other spells might lie in wait. But he came away with the coin resting in the palm of his hand, cool against his sweaty skin.

He turned around to see Az smiling back at him, Glitch kneeling on the floor by her side, and Raw bounding up the stairs. Cain held up the fist encircling the token in triumph.

"C'mon guys," he said, finding it hard to fight the grin that kept threatening to break across his face. "We have a princess to save."


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